​B’nai B’rith International President Gary P. Saltzman and CEO Daniel S. Mariaschin have issued the following statement:
 
U.S. Rep. Charlie Dent (R-Pa.) toured one of B’nai B’rith International’s housing facilities for low-income senior citizens to meet with residents and discuss the critical importance of housing for adults with limited means. B’nai B’rith Apartments in Allentown, Pa., is a residential facility sponsored by B’nai B’rith in partnership with the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).
 
Dent also serves on the Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation, Housing & Urban Development.
 
“I truly appreciate the great work that B'nai B'rith has been doing here in Allentown for decades. B'nai B'rith provides affordable housing options to many seniors. They very much like it here, so we’re blessed to have this organization in our community,” Dent said. “And we want to continue to support organizations like B'nai B'rith and others who are providing these affordable housing options in the 202 for so many seniors and elders across the country.”
 
Dent’s tour of the building included a resident’s apartment, a common room, the computer room, the arts and crafts room and the patio area.
 
The congressman held a Q-and-A session with 90 residents and answered questions regarding Section 202 rental subsidies, social security (privatization and increasing benefits), Medicare and Medicaid. He also spoke of how he is trying to work across party lines to fix the Affordable Care Act (ACA).
 
This type of housing is in constant demand, and researchers say for every low-income senior housing apartment nationwide there are 10-12 seniors waiting for a spot.
 
In attendance from the B’nai B’rith Housing community were B’nai B’rith International Associate Director of the Center for Senior Services Janel Doughten; B’nai B’rith Assistant Director for Aging Policy Evan Carmen; B’nai B’rith Senior Program Associate Breana Clark; as well as B’nai B’rith Apartments staff including Board President Barbra Butz; Project Administrator Bob Sipos; Property Management Assistant Kathy Andreas Heath; Service Coordinator Jennifer Leffler; Rental Assistant Jessica Yaich and Recertification Specialist Beth Gonzalez.
 
“We are pleased that Congressman Dent visited with our residents. He addressed their concerns and allowed their voices to be heard,” Carmen said. “For many seniors, Section 202 housing is their only option, and if this program looses any part of its budget many of our residents will be forced into homelessness.”
 
The B'nai B'rith Senior Housing Network in the United States consists of 38 buildings in 27 communities, includes more than 4,000 apartment units and serves more than 8,000 people.
 
“This is my home now. This is the place where I have friends, I have many things to do, many opportunities, wonderful exposure, you can be as active and as involved as you choose to be. The staff that works here that runs this facility is phenomenal, there is nothing that they won't do to help you down to changing my address when I first moved in. Just availability for everything. I cannot say enough good things about B'nai B'rith, and this is a family to me. And, I'm grateful to be here, this is my home, I love it,” said Kay Graf, a resident who has been living at B’nai B’rith Apartments for one year. 

​B’nai B’rith International President Gary P. Saltzman and CEO Daniel S. Mariaschin have issued the following statement:
 
B’nai B’rith International is appalled by the terrorist attack that occurred today in Barcelona, Spain. A van drove into pedestrians at the Las Ramblas district, killing at least 13 people and wounding more than 100. Two people have been arrested.
 
We stand in solidarity with the people of Spain, and our thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families. 

Sends Letter to Museum Leaders

B’nai B’rith International sent a letter to the Queens Museum, dismayed over the cancellation of an event marking the 70th anniversary of the passage of the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 181, which endorsed the establishment of a Jewish state.
 
The museum’s leaders, after initially endorsing the program, have now reversed their decision, saying that they didn’t want to hold a “political event.”

In their letter, B’nai B’rith International President Gary P. Saltzman and CEO Daniel S. Mariaschin write: “The event, however, is not openly political in nature, but rather a historical re-enactment and a celebration of that momentous vote which was an important step in the establishment of the State of Israel.”
 
They continued: “Moreover, the Queens Museum has hosted a number of exhibitions and events that could be interpreted as political in nature. Museums play an important role in transmitting to the public displays on culture and history, sometimes necessarily of a political nature. We respect and honor that role that museums play in our larger society. We question, though, why that respect is not also afforded to Jewish history.”
 
To read the full letter click here.

UPDATE: Since we sent our letter, the museum has now reversed its decision and will allow the event to move forward. 

B’nai B’rith International has issued the following statement:  
 
President Trump has returned to an indefensible position on the sickening violence that took place in Charlottesville at the “Unite the Right” rally.
 
Instead of asserting leadership and forcefully condemning the alt-right, he is once again equivocating.
 
There is no doubt that the white supremacists and neo-Nazis, with their vulgar messages of violence and exclusion, must be called out in unambiguous terms at the highest level. In the absence of a strong White House statement, the message received by these groups, who feel emboldened, is that their hatred and violence are somehow acceptable. The extremists are encouraged and their views are bolstered in this leadership vacuum.
 
The president needs to display unquestionable clarity that sets a tone for the standards of tolerance and inclusion that have long defined our democracy.
 
His message must state unambiguously and forcefully that this hatred is rejected.
 
Each moment that goes by without moral clarity from the White House is a moment that the extremists gain a greater foothold to undermine our collective values.

B’nai B’rith International President Gary P. Saltzman and CEO Daniel S. Mariaschin have issued the following statement: ​

U.S. Rep. Grace Meng (D-N.Y.) toured one of B’nai B’rith International’s housing facilities for low-income senior citizens to meet with residents and discuss the critical importance of housing for adults with limited means. Nathan I. Nagler Queens B'nai B'rith House in Flushing, Queens, N.Y. is a residential facility sponsored by B’nai B’rith in partnership with the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).
 
Meng toured the building, which included a resident’s apartment, the community room and the facility’s garden.
 
“Section 202 is a critical housing initiative for the elderly that plays a vital role in helping to provide a safe and affordable place for low-income seniors to live. B'nai B'rith does an outstanding job in facilitating this program and it was a pleasure to see its benefits up close during my recent visit to the B'nai B'rith House in Flushing. I thank B'nai B'rith for the great tour of its facility, and I thank the organization for all the exceptional work it does on behalf of our seniors,” Meng said.
 
The congresswoman held a Q-and-A session with 70 low-income seniors and answered questions regarding rental subsidies and Supplemental Security Income benefits. She also addressed the need to protect Social Security and Medicare, and noted that she sponsored legislation to stop spoofing (which is when people call seniors and claim to be offices like the Internal Revenue Service or police to take advantage of them).

B’nai B’rith International has issued the following statement:

We vehemently condemn the white supremacist and neo-Nazi-backed sentiments and subsequent violence in Charlottesville, Va. The disgraceful rally these groups convened was for the express purpose of gathering hate-mongers and extremists to intimidate people all people and undermine the very principles of our democracy. Racist and anti-Semitic epithets were on vulgar display by these groups.

This abominable gathering serves as an important reminder that we must unite to stand against hatred and extremism. President Trump’s comments in the wake of the violence created a false equivalence between the peaceful rally protesters and the hate-mongers who incited violence. There are not "many sides" to the type of hate displayed at this rally. 

From each individual through neighborhoods, communities, towns, cities, states and the nation as a whole, all Americans of good conscience must reject divisiveness and strive to embrace tolerance and unity.

​B’nai B’rith International decries the terrorist attack in the town of Halamish, which left three people dead: Yosef Salomon (70) and his children Chaya Salomon (46) and Elad Salomon (36). On July 21, a Palestinian man jumped the fence surrounding Halamish, knocked on the Solomon’s door, and proceeded to stab a family celebrating Shabbat and the birth of a new grandchild. Yosef Salomon’s wife, Tova Salomon, was also assaulted, but survived the attack. Other family members survived the attack by running upstairs and barricading themselves until help arrived.
 
According to the Times of Israel, the funeral was held on Sunday in Modi’in, Israel, and attended by thousands of people.
 
Israel faces threats by terrorists on a daily basis. Incitement that leads to these horrendous acts of violence must end. B’nai B’rith offers its condolences to the victims and their families.
 
B’nai B’rith has a relationship with Halamish.
 
Last year, a devastating fire broke out in this community, and B’nai B’rith International, along with B’nai B’rith Europe, allocated money from our Israel Emergency Fund to help during the community’s rebuilding process.
 
To the Halamish community, our thoughts are with you as you mourn your neighbors and as you continue to restore your homes and businesses. 

UPDATE: Click here to read our letter to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.​

B’nai B’rith International President Gary P. Saltzman and CEO Daniel S. Mariaschin have issued the following statement:

We are deeply concerned at the pro-Palestinian bias displayed in a new State Department report that severely mischaracterizes the reality in the region.

In the new annual Country Reports on Terrorism, the State Department blames Israel for Palestinian violence against Israelis. It is astonishing that State is echoing the false Palestinian narrative. If it were not released by the State Department, it would be easy to mistake the inflammatory and accusatory language as coming directly from the Palestinians.

According to the report, a “lack of hope” drives Palestinian violence.
 
Israel is not driving the violence committed by the Palestinians. It’s Palestinian leadership—Fatah and Hamas— that incites violence against Israelis on a daily basis. The Palestinian leadership even compensates terrorists and their families with cash as a reward for carrying out an attack on Israelis.

President Trump himself criticized Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas for incitement and paying stipends to terrorists, and Ambassador Nikki Haley emphatically rejects similar language when it’s used at the United Nations.

If it is the intention of the administration to re-start the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, this report sets it up as a non-starter. We urge the State Department to correct its imbalanced narrative.

An exhibit featuring the last Swiss Holocaust survivors went on display at the plenary session of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) in Geneva in late June, with the support of Switzerland’s Federal Department of Foreign Affairs.
 
The Last Swiss Holocaust Survivors was produced by Gamaraal Foundation, an organization that supports needy Holocaust survivors in Switzerland, with an additional emphasis placed on projects in Holocaust education. The exhibit was shown for the first time at the Swiss Embassy in Berlin during the official hand-over ceremony as Switzerland took over the presidency of the IHRA earlier this year.
 
B'nai B'rith member Anita Winter, founder and president of the Gamaraal Foundation, introduced the exhibit at the IHRA with a personal message about her father, a Holocaust survivor who fled Germany and took refuge in Switzerland during the war.
 
“If Hitler’s regime would have been completely successful, I would not be standing here today,” Winter said.
 
“Not many were so lucky like my parents and had the chance to start a new life in Switzerland and for that I am very thankful, more than I can tell you in words. Based on my family history, the memory of the Holocaust, the transfer of knowledge and the discussion of it are therefore very dear to my heart. This was my personal motivation to create the exhibition The Last Swiss Holocaust Survivors,” Winter said.
 
Esther Hörnlimann, the project manager of the exhibition, said that “its primary aim is to reach young people who will soon not have the chance to meet survivors in person.”
 
“They need to grapple with the Holocaust in order to become aware of their own responsibility as human beings, so that they will take a stand against any similar horrible crimes being committed again anywhere in the world, against religious, ethnic or other minorities,” Hörnlimann said. “With the last survivors of the Holocaust we also lose the last witnesses. In this sense it was the last possible moment in which to realize such an exhibition at all.”
 
Most of the Holocaust survivors in Switzerland were not native born: some fled to Switzerland during the war, others came after the liberation for recuperation, and yet others arrived later as refugees from communism during the Hungarian Revolution in 1956 or the Prague Spring of 1968, inter alia.
 
Details from the exhibit can be seen on the websites of the exhibition (https://www.last-swiss-holocaust-survivors.ch/de) and the Gamaraal Foundation (http://www.gamaraal.com/).
 
Click here to learn about how Winter’s parents survived the Holocaust